Development and Cancer Scientific Program

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Our current understanding of human cancer highlights the importance of aberrant developmental programs in cancer pathogenesis. With this in mind, leadership of the Simmons Cancer Center created the Development and Cancer (DC) Scientific Program as one of its pillars. Program membership continues to reflect efforts to comprehensively reach across the campus by flanking laboratory researchers with physician-scientists. The 34 members drawn from 16 departments include 16 faculty members with formal clinical or clinician-scientist training, perfectly poised to close the gap between the bench and bedside. The DC Program includes investigators from the fields of cancer, stem cell, and developmental biology, exploiting existing strengths and recent recruitments, to tackle the crucial questions that will allow us to improve cancer diagnosis, therapy, and ultimately, prevention. Complementing the other scientific programs in the Cancer Center, DC members investigate the developmentally and evolutionarily conserved ancestral themes that are fundamental to cell and organism growth, development, and physiology, and how these factors influence cancer biology. To cover such diverse developmental properties, DC leaders identified five themes that form the core structure of the program: • Theme 1. Tumor-Stroma Interactions; • Theme 2. Oncogene and Tumor Suppressor Gene Biology; • Theme 3. Cancer Cell Programming; • Theme 4. Epigenetics and Cell Fate; and • Theme 5. Stem Cell Biology. The current NCI ($4.1 million) and total peer-reviewed funding ($24.9 million) nearly doubles the grant funding at the program’s inception in 2009. Critically, several funded projects represent multi-investigator efforts within and beyond our institution. DC Program members have authored 327 peer-reviewed publications since the past review, nearly doubling the productivity for the three years prior to the most recent review. The manuscripts with intra-programmatic (13%) and inter-programmatic (36%) footprints nearly doubled as well, and 24% of them included investigators from other NCI-designated cancer centers.